The present invention generally relates to marker lights useful for vehicles. More specifically, the invention utilizes reliable, programmable LED vehicle marker lighting.
Vehicle marker lights have long been used to signal, for example, stranded, emergency (e.g., tow trucks, police or fire vehicles, etc.) or maintenance (e.g., street sweepers, etc.) vehicles, as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,484,598, 3,692,998 and 5,299,102. Incandescent lighting systems have traditionally been used for this purpose. But such systems are relatively inefficient and unreliable when compared to light emitting diodes (LEDs), which have an operating life of up to 100,000 hours before significant degradation. Incandescent lighting systems are also subject to vibration, which can interfere with the useful life of such lights. LEDs are not subject to such vibration issues, and use less power, which can translate into less strain on the vehicle electrical system, e.g., less drain on the vehicle battery, longer-lasting, etc. For these reasons, and others, it would be desirable to provide vehicle marker lights which are programmable LED displays utilizing solid state LED technology.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved design for vehicle marker lights which is programmable, easy to use, reliable, makes use of LED technology, made of off-the-shelf components and standard circuits, has a long life, and provides a variety of lighting options, e.g., acting as both a marker light as well as emergency flashers, traffic control arrows, turn signals, strobes, etc.